


Drawing Dead

by manic_intent



Series: Martingale [3]
Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alpha!John, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Full spoilers, M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega!Santino, That a/b/o fic where making free with information also has consequences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 06:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11143047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: Aurelio, to his credit, actually managed ten minutes of small talk before sheer curiosity got the better of him. “Heard you’re pregnant.”John raised his eyebrows. He had been carefully stacking the cases Santino had previously confiscated from Aurelio on the workbench. “Do I look pregnant?”“I don’t mean youliterally,” Aurelio said, making no move towards the cases. The mechanic was leaning against the car he had been working on when John had wandered into the chopshop: a badly battered antique Jaguar, hoisted up on a cherry picker. He wiped his hands on a rag, dark hair plastered to head by sweat, the fluorescent bars in the chopshop giving his skin a bluish tint. “None of my business, but. I gotta ask. Did you guys uh. Fall inlurrvesomehow, like, they say, there’s a thin line between love and hatred and—”John stared pointedly across the workshop, and Aurelio’s assistants began making a show of being busy on tasks, shuffling off out of sight. “No,” John said. “It’s not compulsory.”





	Drawing Dead

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally going to go back to concentrating on writing publishable fiction, but I fell down a rabbit hole of watching one of Keanu Reeves’ weirdly adorable cast interviews and @_@ sigh. One of my long-term readers, bbb136, asked for a continuation +Aurelio and some topics so here we go. ^^;; 
> 
> Assumes that the deleted scene took place (Santino taking over management of Aurelio’s car dealership).

Aurelio, to his credit, actually managed ten minutes of small talk before sheer curiosity got the better of him. “Heard you’re pregnant.”

John raised his eyebrows. He had been carefully stacking the cases Santino had previously confiscated from Aurelio on the workbench. “Do I look pregnant?” 

“I don’t mean you _literally_ ,” Aurelio said, making no move towards the cases. The mechanic was leaning against the car he had been working on when John had wandered into the chopshop: a badly battered antique Jaguar, hoisted up on a cherry picker. He wiped his hands on a rag, dark hair plastered to head by sweat, the fluorescent bars in the chopshop giving his skin a bluish tint. “None of my business, but. I gotta ask. Did you guys uh. Fall in _lurrve_ somehow, like, they say, there’s a thin line between love and hatred and—”

John stared pointedly across the workshop, and Aurelio’s assistants began making a show of being busy on tasks, shuffling off out of sight. “No,” John said. “It’s not compulsory.” 

“I dunno man,” Aurelio said, blinking. “I mean, I’m a beta. But I watch porn. And read stuff.” 

“Stuff,” John echoed, folding his arms. 

“Uh well. Okay. First off, thanks for returning my stuff and all that. I appreciate it. You didn’t really have to.” 

“Would’ve done it earlier if I’d known.” It had only been on some offhanded comment from Cassian that John had even heard about Aurelio’s ‘change of management’ at all. 

“And. I’m sorry? For ratting you out that time.”

“I understand.” 

“I’ll fix up your car for free, and we’ll count it even?”

John nodded. “Sure.” 

“We good?”

“We’re good.”

Aurelio visibly relaxed. “Okay so. What. The fuck, man. You and _Santino D’Antonio_? I meet a lot of assholes in this job and most of them added together would’ve had nothing on that guy. He blew up your house. Got you to kill his sister. And then he tried to kill you for killing his sister. And then took out a contract on you. _And_ tried to get your Continental membership revoked.”

John nodded again. That was a fair summary of the concentrated asshattery that Santino had put him through after their second meeting. “Yeah.”

“So,” Aurelio said, morbidly fascinated, “in the Continental, you what, did the alpha thing in really bad porn films, that plot device where bad shit happens but then the omega shows a bit of boob and all’s forgiven, they do the nasty all over every surface.” 

“Kinda,” John said. Aurelio screwed up his face in disgust. 

“I thought that was just a bad porn thing? I’m a little bit disappointed in you, man. Sorry.”

“That’s fair.” 

“It’s 2017,” Aurelio said sadly. “And condoms are cheap. Or. Did you guys, y’know, use a condom, but it maybe got purposefully damaged, ‘cos I wouldn’t put that beyond That Guy—”

“We forgot.” 

“Seriously. You could have caught something. I can’t believe I’m about to lecture _John Wick_ on this kinda shit. But you could have caught something serious. Like whatever makes him act like such a major jackass.”

“He _is_ a jackass,” John agreed. Pregnancy had worsened that part of Santino’s personality: even though the cases had been handed over gratis at the end, he had been extremely bitchy when John had first offered to buy out the chopshop. 

“You sure that kid is even yours?” 

John nodded. He’d thought that briefly over, when he’d taken a flight out to Rome after the 2am phone call, and had concluded that Santino’s sheer nastiness during the call had probably been the best indicator that the kid _was_ unequivocally John’s. Besides, it was really just his luck. The universe loved screwing with him. 

“You happy about that?” Aurelio asked, staring at him keenly.

“Not sure,” John conceded. He wasn’t entirely sure that he felt _happy_ about the situation, per se. He was fairly sure he understood happiness, at least as a state of fragile peace, usually the still pockets of calm before said universe got around to screwing with him again. 

“Well,” Aurelio said, padding over and tentatively patting John on the arm with his fingertips, the way someone might carefully pet a dangerous animal, “uh, congrats?” 

“Thanks.” 

“You guys…” Aurelio trailed off, pulling a face. “You guys getting married?”

John frowned. “No?” 

“Thought that was a thing, especially for them Italians. Being mostly Catholic. Even though I think they’ve been excommunicated by the Pope. But still.” 

John had been married before, a privilege that he had killed for and had been nearly killed by, something that had eventually snowballed into the current mess that he was in. Life had made him necessarily ambivalent about marriage. “Santino never said anything.” 

“Could get tough for the kid,” Aurelio said, retreating back to the Jaguar. “What’d you do if someone were to bring that up at one of them Camorra meetings? Y’know. Legitimacy.” 

“I’d probably shoot him,” John said, after a moment’s thought. “Or her.” 

“… Then again,” Aurelio said faintly, “I see how this won’t be a problem.” 

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” Aurelio brightened. “Maybe this is a good thing. Overall? Kids are awesome. I got tons of nieces and nephews, they’re great fun.” At John’s cautious nod, Aurelio continued, “So, you guys picked out a godfather for the kid yet? No pun intended. Serious question.”

“No?” John had left Santino to handle every detail of the pregnancy: at first because he didn’t want to come off as intrusive and worsen an already delicate matter, and later because it’d simply gotten comfortable that way. “Is that important?”

“Kinda traditional.” Aurelio cleared his throat. “Well, ah, I’m really good with kids. My nieces and nephews love me. I’m their favourite uncle. And. I like to think we’re pretty good friends?”

“Yes?” 

“…Nevermind,” Aurelio said, after John stared blankly at him in a confused silence. “Thanks for giving me back my stuff. I’ll call you when your car’s ready. Grats again.”

#

John was tidying up the yard when Jimmy’s cop car moseyed up the driveway, stopping at a respectful distance. Jimmy got out, smiling ingratiatingly as he sidled over, his pale face growing a little paler over his uniform. “Hey John.”

“Jimmy.” 

“You’ve been gone a bit. Back now for good?”

“Not really. Flying off again in a day.” 

“You um, working again?” 

“Not here.” 

“Okay.” Jimmy looked briefly uncomfortable. “New house. Looks pretty good? Very modern. Nice.” 

“Yeah.” The Firm had done a good job, as it usually did, though this time, John had asked for a smaller house. Filled as it was with memories, his previous house had been more of a mausoleum than a home, elegant but ultimately empty. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with the new house yet.

“Where’s the dog?”

“Not here.” 

“Kinda heard a funny rumour the other day,” Jimmy said, smiling ingratiatingly again. “When I was responding to a NTSH further out near the highway. About you.” 

A Nothing-To-See-Here was about par for cops like Jimmy, tasked with carefully bridging the awkward gap between the world of people like John and everyone else. “Uh huh.” 

“Heard you got married again.” 

“… No?” 

“Kinda thought so.” Jimmy had a nervous laugh. “Haha. I told them, I could tell you weren’t, ‘cos I was pretty sure you were working again, and the last time you got married you retired, but they said, hell yeah you had to be married again or something, ‘cos word on the street is you’re having a kid with some big shot on the High Table, then everyone started arguing but at least everyone also stopped shooting at each other.” 

Jimmy tried to make the best of a bad job, in John’s opinion, and he was tentatively fond of the cop, albeit not exactly to the point of being invested in his welfare. The caring-generally-about-others part of John tended to go on the fritz. “Turf warfare?”

“Yeah. Nothing major. Just too much to drink. Toes got stepped on.” 

“I _am_ having a kid with somebody on the High Table,” John said, as an afterthought. “But I don’t see why everyone’s so interested.” Maybe this would get people to think twice about going after Santino. The mad drive from Rome to Naples had been the longest of John’s life. He’d thought that he would be too late. 

“Wow. Uh. Wow.” Jimmy goggled for a moment. “Congrats, man.”

“Thanks,” John said, watched Jimmy drive off, tidied some more, went to bed, and was woken up mere hours later by his phone ringing. It was Santino. “Something up?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” 

John rolled over to press his face briefly into the pillows, stifling a groan. “Mmhmm?”

“I thought you were going to New York just to settle that chopshop.” 

“Mmhmm.” John turned to check the clock. Three in the am. He swallowed a sigh. 

“So why,” Santino said, with deceptive sweetness, “am I suddenly inundated by very specific well-wishes from all my enemies?” 

Word _did_ get around quickly in his world. John stared blearily at the minutes ticking from 04 to 05. 06. “Kinda no hiding it nowadays anyway, yeah?” Santino was far enough in that there was no wearing his favourite vests or shirts, something that roundly pissed Santino off at least once a week. 

“Fuck you, _stronzo_ ,” Santino snapped, and hung up. John rolled over and pulled a pillow over his head. He was just about to doze off when the phone rang. It was Santino again. John picked up.

“Yeah.” 

“When are you flying back?” Santino sounded fractionally less pissed. In the background, there was a faint sound of snuffling and claws clicking on marble, which meant that somebody, possibly Cassian, had staged an intervention. Dog sometimes had a narcotic effect on Santino’s moods, something that John and Cassian had learned to treasure. 

“Later today.”

“There’s something I want from New York.” 

“Sure.” John closed his eyes. He had a kit under the house still, if somewhat diminished, though he’d probably have to get another set of body armour, and better gear if the job was going to be complicated.

“There’s a bakery in SoHo called Dominique Ansel. Buy one of everything.”

It took John’s brain a moment to catch up. “Really?”

“Was that actually difficult to understand?”

John rolled onto his back. “You want me to. _Buy_. Cakes and stuff.” 

“Yes?” Santino’s tone took on an edge, a warning signal. “Don’t tell me that you don’t have money.” 

“It’s not that. It’s. We’re really talking about cake?”

“For fuck’s sake, John. The hell is wrong with you today? Yes. _Buy_ things. Surely you’re capable of basic social interaction.”

“Okay.” John nearly started to say something unwise about Santino and morning sickness, but thankfully, Santino hung up. Left to himself, John sighed.

#

The queue at the bakery snaked long enough around the block that John briefly wondered whether this was actually _business_ after all. Either way, he had a holstered gun against his spine and knives strapped under his pants, $5,000 in cash and a small stack of gold coins, all of which, in John’s experience, were workable solutions for most situations.

His old drill instructor in the Marines had once told John that he made for an excellent sniper despite his lack of patience because he also lacked enough imagination to get bored. John was perfectly fine lying still for hours in the dust in the Kashmir foothills, or freezing atop an apartment block, or in queue outside a bakery in SoHo, staring at nothing, but it wasn’t because he lacked imagination. An assassin without imagination would never get far. He just preferred the world like this, still enough that he didn’t feel like an outsider. Besides, life always caught back up with him sooner or later.

“John.” Winston ambled up to the line, hands pushed into his heavy coat. As the lady behind John shot them both a dirty look, Winston smiled broadly at her. “Just keeping a friend company, m’dear.” She rolled her eyes and glanced away. 

“Winston,” John said. Winston was alone: no one around him was casing the area, though traffic was sluggish. It was a nice morning. 

“I hear congratulations are in order.” 

“Starting to wish I hadn’t said anything.” Did _everyone_ now know? Small wonder Santino had been pissed. 

“Perhaps it was a little unwise,” Winston agreed, glancing keenly up and down the queue. “You do know that for a coin, Charon could have arranged for someone to buy what you needed.” 

That had briefly occurred to John when he had first seen the size of the queue, but he had gotten in line anyway. He shrugged. “Wouldn’t have been the same.” 

“Interesting,” Winston said, as the queue shuffled forward slightly. “What were you asked to buy? Out of curiosity.”

“One of everything.”

Winston sighed. “I thought so. There’s a two item limit, John.” 

Ah. Too late now: his flight was in a few hours. “What kinda shop has a purchase limit?” He paused. “Is it a New York thing?” 

“You _live_ in New York. There’s a life outside _the_ life, friend,” Winston said, gesturing expansively at the sun-warmed traffic. “Museums, the theatre, the great outdoors, _people_ …” He smiled. “Upscale little bakeries with item limits.” 

“And?”

“You _did_ retire before.” 

John nodded. He had lived life with Helen according to what _she_ had wanted: he’d had the money to spare and besides, she had far more experience with being normal than John could ever even imagine. He had spent the days relearning social cues, trying to be the person that she wanted him to be. It hadn’t been perfect. Some days he guessed the wrong cues; some days he hadn’t had the energy to try. She had been patient, and John had appreciated that.

“Life tends to be less lonely when it isn’t lived on a lie,” Winston said, and patted him on the arm. “Congratulations again.”

“Thanks.” 

Winston nodded amiably. “Come back to the Continental anytime. We should celebrate. Drinks will be on the house.” He ambled off, and this was actually… pleasant, John decided, as the queue inched ever slowly closer to the door. Enforced normality. 

Naturally, life chose to wait until John was just through the door into the saccharine warmth of the elegant bakery to catch right up to him. There were shrieks from the queue outside as a black van cut sharply through the traffic and swerved to a halt on the pavement, the panel door sliding open. John shut his eyes, briefly, then he grabbed the closest thing at hand, a pair of steel water flasks. He slung a flask hard at the first gunman that emerged from the van, knocking him sprawling into the second masked man, both of them shouting in Italian, fumbling with their AR-15s. The third gunman had a pistol, and he ducked the second flask, but John had already closed in, wrenching the pistol free even as he dug his fingertips into the man’s throat, slamming him against the side of the van, cracking his skull against the edge of the door.

The man went limp. John was already on the move. He tore the rifle from the first gunman, ramming the stock into his throat to crush his windpipe. As he collapsed, tangled up in rifles, the second gunman roared, swinging, and John grabbed his wrist, twisting around to reverse them, getting his knee on the man’s chest as he bounced his head off the pavement with their combined weight. The driver’s door slammed shut. Driver was making a run for it, sprinting down the pavement. John picked up one of the flasks and took careful aim. 

Everyone stared as he got back in line, even the servers behind the counter. The lady who’d been behind him said, “Holy. Shit.” 

“Saw someone calling the cops. It’d be okay,” John said, trying for reassuring but probably coming up short.

“Who’re you? FBI? CIA?” 

“Something like that,” John said. She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I’ve never been here before,” John told her, hoping that she wasn’t about to go into hysterics. He’d never really known how to handle that. “What would you recommend for um, a pregnant omega?” 

She stared at him for a moment more, then she beamed. “Pretty sure they’re gonna let you have one of everything, hero.” 

Hero. John puzzled that over, bemused, all through the flight back to Naples. The woman had been mistaken, of course. The men in the van weren’t armed robbers or terrorists: they’d been there for John. He’d recognised the signs. And starting a shootout on the main street would’ve meant police, panic, as well as possibly serious damage to the bakery, which was why John hadn’t drawn his own gun. 

“Heard there was trouble,” Santino said, as John set the box down on the breakfast table, in between cups of coffee. 

“Handled it.” 

“Newspapers described some off-duty FBI ‘hero’ who somehow managed to resolve everything non-lethally,” Santino said, pursing his lips. “You should’ve killed them. The hit squad was probably Cosa Nostra.”

“I know.” John sat down, stifling a yawn. Flying made him sleepy. At his knees, Dog snuffled his fingers, wagging his tail furiously, and Santino glanced down at him, then up at John. Heavily pregnant, Santino had given up on all of his favourite clothes with open reluctance, settling for soft robes, shirts, pants in severe shades, and a perpetually bad mood. “People there called me a hero as well. Was weird.”

“Don’t get used to it.” Santino grimaced as he sat up, tugging the box over. “We both know better. They were after you. Probably hoping to take you out before the baby’s born.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I should send you back. Sal Ferrara runs New York’s Cosa Nostra.” Santino stabbed what looked like the bastard child of a donut and a croissant with a fork, smeared with fluorescent yellow icing. 

“Okay.” There’d been more downtime of late, ever since John had excised the leak in the Camorra and the balance of power had reset firmly back into Santino’s favour. He’d rather liked it. But he’d always known it wasn’t going to last. Life never worked out that way. 

Santino eyed him for a moment, then he cut himself a chunk from the mutant donut, ate it, pulled a face, and pushed the plate over to John. It was far too sweet for him, and weirdly flaky. “Months ago you said that you felt ‘something else’ when you found out that you were a father. Worked that out yet?”

“Not exactly what I said.” John thought back. “Not really.” 

Santino snorted. “Maybe you should see a psychiatrist.” 

“Tried that before.” Apparently there weren’t any drugs or therapy out there that could fix an empathy chasm. As before, with Helen, John just tried to guess the cues. Normality with Helen had involved learning a new social language that was as foreign to John as quantum physics: time and practice had only afforded him a less than mediocre grasp of its nuances. “Does it matter?”

“Of course.” Santino stabbed a second mutant donut, one with pink icing, but didn’t try to eat it. “I’m surprised you’ve stayed around for so long. You obviously don’t like me. And I really doubt that you’re that interested in the sex.” 

The sex _was_ good, but John guessed that it wasn’t a good point to bring up right now. “Isn’t it normal for the father of a kid to want to hang around?”

“Normal?” Santino laughed. It was an ugly sound. “ _Us_? Besides. No, I don’t think it is. Not for people in our circumstances. I thought… months ago I thought that you’d bargain. For visitation rights or something, after the birth. Maybe a favour here and there. I didn’t think that you’d ask to stay. Or be willing to work.” 

So that was why Santino had looked surprised. “I don’t just want to have visitation rights. I knew you didn’t need another bodyguard: you’ve got Cassian, Ares, and the others. I guess I kinda assumed that you wouldn’t let me hang around unless I cut a deal right there. It’s not like I’ve got anything else to trade.” 

“And after the child is born? Will you still work?” 

“Guess so,” John said, wary now. Was Santino having second thoughts? “You said that was your price.” 

“Life will get more interesting,” Santino predicted. “Some people will think that they have to get through you to get to me. So they will try and kill you first.” He smiled thinly. “The consequences of success.”

“Better me than you.” 

Santino blinked, and actually flushed a little, picking up his coffee cup in an attempt to hide it. “You mean better you than the child.” 

Ah, so that was it. “That time I nearly killed myself speeding down to Naples? Didn’t just do it for the kid.” After all, ‘the kid’ was still an idea, an anomalous concept that John had seen briefly mapped in ultrasound. It was a concept that had long since become intricately intertwined in the life that fed it, as difficult as Santino could be at the best of times. 

“Spare me your pathetic attempts at sweet talk.” Santino narrowed his eyes. “This is a contract. We aren’t lovers.” 

“Sometimes don’t seem that way,” John said, uncurling, and despite Santino baring his teeth, stepped over and bent for a bruising kiss on the mouth.

Santino muffled an indignant growl, jerking back, and slapped John, hard enough to snap his head to a side. Before John could react, say something, Santino twisted fingers into his hair and hauled him over for another kiss, just as rough, licking into John’s mouth. John made a surprised sound but braced himself on Santino’s chair, trying to kiss Santino back, a messy business that got John bitten a couple of times until he gave in and let Santino lead. It was nice to kiss, gentled down. Helen had enjoyed it, so it was something that John had practiced with her, an easy intimacy that didn’t often need guesswork. 

“That’s new,” Santino murmured, when they were catching their breaths. “Usually if you kiss me you only want to do the alpha thing. Scent my throat. Or admire the accident.” 

“Not a nice way to talk about our kid,” John said, without thinking, and Santino narrowed his eyes, pursing his lips, clearly about to make some other cutting remark. 

John kissed him again, expecting another slap, but although Santino stiffened up, he opened his mouth willingly enough. Eventually, the prickly tension leached away, the hand in John’s hair relaxing, stroking over his shoulders. John tucked an arm under Santino’s thighs and around his back, ignoring the yelp of shock as he scooped Santino up with a grunt of effort. This was probably going to hurt his back afterwards. John wasn’t young any longer. Still, it was worth it for the rare confusion on Santino’s face as John set him down on the bed and kissed him again. Santino rumbled, a low and involuntary purr, relaxing. 

“I have a lot of things to do today,” Santino grumbled, though he let John strip off his pants and underwear, and he was already so wet; even his thighs were slick. 

“Want me to stop?” John asked, swiping his fingertips through the mess and sucking them clean. Santino flushed, grabbing a pillow and tossing it at John’s face. 

“I should make you pull out,” Santino said, as John obligingly tucked the pillow under his ass. “Knot your hand. Takes too damned long otherwise.” 

“If you want.” John hoped not. 

He was pressing in, the fit nice and tight but not uncomfortable; he’d had Santino before he left for New York with Aurelio’s cases, a quick fuck that hadn’t done much for Santino’s terrible mood. Now he took his time, and oddly enough, Santino didn’t complain. He was silent instead, eyes closed, lips parted, gasping whenever John pushed deep. They weren’t making love, but it was a close enough approximation, something more helpless. He did attempt to pull out near the end, though it killed him to try, but Santino locked his heels around the small of his back.

Later, knotted tight and pressed against Santino’s back, John said, “Usually, when I try to kiss you, you hurt me for trying.” 

Santino shot an irritated glance over his shoulder. “Because your sense of timing is bad.”

“I think you’re worried that I won’t listen to you any longer once the child is born. Or that I’ll walk away someday.” John said, and watched Santino tense up warily. “Relax. I won’t.” 

“I’m not worried about that,” Santino said, annoyed. “It may be strange for you to hear this, but I actually lived nearly four decades of my life successfully without your fucking help. With or without you, I intend to keep my seat at the High Table until the bitter fucking end.” 

“All right,” John said. He’d guessed wrongly then. 

“What I’m worried about…” Santino trailed off, rubbing a hand over the heavy swell of his belly. “We _are_ going to be terrible parents. It was funny before. Less funny now.” 

“We’ll figure something out.” 

“I didn’t want to care. But I do now,” Santino said, the confession wrung from him, avoiding John’s eyes, shoving a hand against John’s mouth when John tried to kiss him. John waited, as nails dug briefly into his cheek, then Santino relented, fingers stroking over to the back of John’s neck, pulling him closer.

#

John was watching the grapes getting harvested when there was a loud snarl of fury from somewhere upstairs, followed by the sound of something smashing. The staff close by froze, wide-eyed, looking around, but John didn’t shift. Cassian was with Santino, Ares was around somewhere, and there hadn’t been any alerts from the watch, which meant nobody was in danger.

It occurred to him that this was possibly the wrong social response as an alpha with a heavily pregnant omega, but just as he considered checking things out, Cassian poked his head out of a top floor window, peering around until he noticed John. “Hey John.”

“Something come up?” John asked. 

“Might be you need to take a drive for a bit. I’ll call you when there’s an all-clear.”

“Okay.” 

It was a beautiful day, warm for the season, and John chose a random car from the garage and drove down to the beach, coasting until he found a quiet stretch. He parked, wandered out onto the warm, white sand, and sat under a palm tree, looking out. The blue horizon drew a horizontal seam over the turquoise sea, ridged by pale banks of clouds. Somewhere in the distance, a kid shrieked, a shrill sound that had John’s hand jumping briefly to his holster, but she’d only been playing with her mother, splashing in the surf with a ball. John relaxed. 

Helen had loved going down to the beach, swimming in the surf, running up and down the sand. John tried to imagine himself knee-deep in the sea with some kid and a ball, but it was a strain, like he was trying to build up some fantasy with bricks that he had to concentrate to conjure. 

Eventually, cars pulled up at the parking area behind the sand and grass, and John glanced over, then started to get up as Santino picked his way heavily over the grass. He got waved back down, and eventually, Santino sat beside him, grimacing with the effort. John looked back. Cassian was casing the area, looking unhappy about it. From the sedan, Ares smiled thinly at him and signed, -Careful. He's in a mood-. 

“Everything okay?” John asked, as Santino leaned back against the trunk of the tree. Dog charged past them over the beach, whuffing excitedly as he got to the shoreline, wagging his tail furiously as he sniffed at the surf. 

“Fuck no,” Santino growled, closing his eyes. “Everything aches today. Even bits that I didn’t think would hurt. My knee hurts. My fucking _spine_ hurts. And your kid kicks like a donkey.” 

John nodded. When Santino was like this, it was better to be quiet. He watched Dog instead as he barked at the surf, charged further down the beach, sped back towards Cassian, then angled back to John, licking his hand excitedly. John patted Dog, nodding at Santino, and Dog circled over, whining, nudging his head up under Santino’s palm, panting when Santino scratched his ears. 

“My grand-uncle called,” Santino said, when Dog was starting to doze off. 

“Thought he was playing nice nowadays.” Giovanni Ricci had swallowed his pride and extended a grudging truce that had turned less grudging over the months, as far as John could tell anyway, once the body count started adding up. He’d even been instrumental in calming down the other Camorra heads after the raid in Naples.

“Relatives,” Santino growled. “Unbearable when hostile, even more unbearable when friendly.”

“What did he want?” 

“He’s an old-fashioned relic from a time when omegas were kept out of the ‘family business’ and traded around for alliances.” Santino spat into the sand to his left.

John nodded. Viggo Tarasov had been that way; Abram, less so. The sentiment was slowly phasing out: other than Santino, there was one other omega seated at the High Table. 

“He wanted to know when the wedding was,” Santino said, furious enough that he was slipping into Neapolitan. “And when I expressed surprise, he vomited a lot of bullshit about succession and appearances.” 

“Ah.” 

Dog whined, and Santino took in a deep breath, scratching its ears again. “I told him that I’ve gotten this far without being someone’s omega,” he said, back in English, the venom easing. “And he had the balls to remind me that I wouldn’t have been seated at the High Table if it weren’t for you.” 

That was an accurate summation, but John held his tongue, and tried to make appropriately soothing noises. That didn’t work: Santino glared at him. “You sound like a constipated weasel.” Over Santino’s thigh, Dog shot John a soulfully reproachful stare. 

John cleared his throat. “Aurelio mentioned this when I was in New York.”

Santino narrowed his eyes. “Oh he did, did he?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” John said quickly, before Santino decided to call a hit on Aurelio or something equally terrible. “Legitimacy, that is. If somebody wants to bring that up to my face—”

“You’ll what, shoot them?” Santino rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’d go down well. No.”

“I don’t see why it has to be a big deal.” John paused. “Unless you _want_ to get married.” Now that was a thoroughly weird thought. 

Santino sniffed. “If I did, I’d forever just be ‘John Wick’s omega’. It won’t matter what my family name is, or what I’ve done, or who I am. Appearance is everything in this game.” 

“Yeah.” Right now, John worked _for_ Santino, like Cassian, like Ares. Power was always a high wire act, and Santino was nothing but ambitious. “I get that.” 

“I don’t actually regret this,” Santino said, patting John’s thigh, then he dug in his nails, nearly hard enough to hurt. “Yet.” 

“If you ever do,” John said, “it won’t be because of me.” He could do that much. And it had been the right thing to say. Santino smiled tightly, but leaned against him, watching the surf, the intimacy token only on the surface.

#

Gianna Maria Wick-D’Antonio was born loudly into the world on a Sunday morning. Santino took a break from cursing to relax his death grip on John’s hand, sinking back against the pillows, while John stared at the weirdly wrinkled, red thing that the nurses were checking over. Holding his swaddled daughter after she calmed down was possibly the first actually frightening thing that had ever happened to John. She was so tiny. Fragile.

“Thank fuck that’s over,” Santino muttered, pale with exhaustion, though something softened in his face when John wordlessly handed Gianna over. She stared up at him with wide, dark eyes. “Why is she so quiet?” 

John looked over at the doctor, who cleared his throat nervously. “Some children are naturally so, but she is definitely healthy. Congratulations.” 

“Stay that way and maybe we’ll get along,” Santino told the child, though he brushed a kiss over her forehead, and rocked her until she slept. 

The medical staff cleaned up and were shown out by Cassian, who nodded gravely at John before letting himself out. John allowed himself to relax. Unlike Cassian, John hadn’t really liked the idea of calling in a medical team to the D’Antonio manse. Even though he understood why. Hospitals were hard to secure. 

“Well done,” John told Santino, because it _had_ looked like a thoroughly excruciating process, one that had stretched for hours longer than John thought possible. 

“Fuck you. You didn’t do any of the work.” Santino glowered at him as John shifted from the chair up to the bed, pressing his mouth to Santino’s temple. 

They breathed together, the world made briefly still. Then Santino handed Gianna over, stifling yawns: he curled up and was dozing by the time John settled Gianna in the cradle. Life was strange: half a century in, and it could still take John by surprise. A _child_ , made without lies. He wasn’t sure how long he watched her sleep. Eventually, Santino yawned and made a grouchy sound, beckoning imperiously, and John obeyed, called to heel.

**Author's Note:**

> Beach scene :3  
> 
> 
> \--  
> Auto mechanic slang: http://news.wyotech.edu/post/2012/02/auto-mechanic-slang/#.WTacbhOGOJQ
> 
> Pope got around to excommunicating (some of?) the Mafia in 2014 http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-pope-excommunicates-the-mafia-finally
> 
> The Dominique Ansel queue was about 2 hours when it opened in London, but I think it’s down to 50mins or so in NY… it’s been a couple of years though? :3 Still want to go, though I’ve had an excellent cronut in Melbourne at Lune. 
> 
> Things I never wanted to know about but read up for the fic thanks guys http://www.medicinenet.com/pregnancy/page4.htm etc https://community.babycenter.com/post/a51400336/very_quiet_newborn_-_normal zz though tbh, my brother was apparently a really quiet baby
> 
> I didn’t originally want to do the kid part of this fic, but then I saw this article about the John Wick 2 commentary track ^^ esp point 8: https://filmschoolrejects.com/john-wick-chapter-2-commentary-with-keanu-reeves/ 
> 
> And the weirdly adorable cast interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t54pRv4PwMk
> 
> To echo Santino, ahaha thank fuck that’s over XD;; Back to irl writing deadlines. Thanks for reading!


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